Review Details
MUSIC IN THE UNIVERSITY ORGAN RECITAL SERIES WOLFGANG ZERER, HAMBURG
Alan Cooper
10 March 2009
King's College Chapel
University music’s celebrity organ recitals regularly invite some of the world’s finest exponents of the instrument to enjoy mining the unique strata of sound to be found within the seemingly limitless reserves of our Aubertin organ. Wolfgang Zerer, Professor of organ at the University of Music in Hamburg was Tuesday’s guest performer and he brought with him the sturdy North German sound world of three of the composers who predated J. S. Bach and whose music represents the tributaries that fed and inspired the greatest of all composers for the organ.
Matthias Weckmann’s Magnificat II. Toni is one of many settings of the Magnificat plainsong for solo organ. This was a recognised format followed by a host of different composers. Weckmann’s setting comprises four verses. The first with a firm strong bass had the nobility of a grand processional. The second was lithe and full of exciting scalar passages. A more gentle verse using soft flute stops led into a magnificent finale for full organ which Wolfgang Zerer made even more imposing by giving the sound blend a nice cutting edge.
The other two pieces by Weckmann were his Toccata in C and the Canzona in C. It was not just the matching key that made them such fine companion pieces; both the chiming Toccata and the busy fingered Canzona seemed to come from the same family and represented the more virtuoso and less devotional side of organ playing.
Franz Tunder’s In dich hab ich gehoffet, Herr was a marvellous colloquy between two separate organ choirs that developed and was worked out in the most intriguing way.
Heinrich Scheidemann gave us another setting of the Magnificat plainsong for solo organ also in four verses, more varied in tone and texture than that of Weckmann and with echo effects that often had a playful edge to them.
This left the two pieces by Bach representing the culmination and finest achievement of this school of organ music. The Sonata in E flat Major (BWV 525) opened with a jaunty movement Tempo ordinario given even more of a lift by the chuff in the attack of the flute stops. The second movement, an extensive Adagio, was made wonderfully transparent by the clear separation of the different mixtures used in the lines of the counterpoint. One of the special highlights of the whole performance was the splendid high-kicking Allegro that was given a gleeful pungency by Wolfgang Zerer’s zestful playing.
The recital concluded with Bach’s Fuga sopra il Magnificat (BWV 733) in d minor a resplendent conclusion to a fine recital which paid due homage to some of the finest music of Bach’s predecessors while still leaving him head and shoulders above the rest; and its is said that he never thought his music would last much beyond his own time!